Workhouse Arts Center


The Workhouse Arts Center is a 501 non-profit that provides visual and performing arts studio and exhibition space as well as arts education programs. The Workhouse is located in Lorton, Virginia, situated on of land in the Occoquan Workhouse portion of the historic D.C. Department of Corrections Lorton Reformatory.
The Workhouse houses over 100 professional and emerging artists as well as cooperative studios, performance and theatre venues, a main gallery building, as well as gallery space in each studio and event facilities. The Workhouse also houses a museum that covers the Workhouse from the reformatory to the arts center.

History

In 2002, 2,324 acres of the Lorton Reformatory were sold to Fairfax County, Virginia for $4.2 million after the correctional facility closed in 2001. Because of the site's prime location next to the Occoquan River and major highways, a comprehensive adaptive re-use study was completed. In 2002 the Lorton Arts Foundation, Inc. proposed a plan to transform the former prison facility into a cultural arts center. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the rezoning of a 55-acre portion of the former correctional facility to become the Workhouse Arts Center in July, 2004. After several years of planning, adaptive reuse, and rehabilitation of the historic buildings, the Workhouse Arts Center opened to the public in September, 2008.

Lucy Burns Museum

Because of her involvement as a leader of women's suffrage and being a member of the Silent Sentinels that resulted in several arrests including the "Night of Terror", Burn's memory was honored with the Lucy Burns Museum at the Workhouse Arts Center.